Saturday, July 07, 2007

July 7- Oh, from the darkly hallows...

Come with me to the Way-Back Machine, and I'll show you a work from the early 1980s. It's a 24 x 30 oil, done from material I took at the Bishop Mule Days, and this was before I was doing acrylics, and it shows you all where I was at the time. Nothing wrong with looking back over old work--it can show you where you were on your painting journey, and revisiting these elder stepping stones can teach in unusual ways.
For example, here I see I had no understanding of how color behaves in light and shadow. And I did the usual mistake of making things lighter by adding white to them, creating a chalking overview. I didn't know how to make things recede into space yet, but I sure was in love with blue shadows! I also hadn't figured out how to make my brush marks convey space. OK, enough bashing. It is well drawn.

An interesting side note, look at the signature. It is the earliest version of my trademark "Elin", and includes my maiden name!

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